


Supposed to Be

by patster223



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Winter in Hieron 28 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 05:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11224305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patster223/pseuds/patster223
Summary: You do notchooseto become paladin. It is a duty that is given to you, and one that you accept and honor gladly.At least, that’s what Hadrian had always thought.





	Supposed to Be

**Author's Note:**

> I have written 15,000 words for this podcast in a month, because my life is clearly out of my control. Thank you to [the-oxford-english-fangeek](http://the-oxford-english-fangeek.tumblr.com/) for the beta! <3
> 
> Spoilers for Winter in Hieron 28.

Hadrian dreams of being baked alive under a desert sun.

Hadrian has never been to a desert: has never known anything but the seas of Velas and the snow that heralded the end of everything. But no--Hadrian realizes now that the snow can’t be the herald. Surely it is this _heat_ : this heat whose pressure blurs the edges of Hadrian’s vision, whose arid grasp on Hadrian’s lungs causes him to sputter and gasp. His dry lips crack every time he attempts to draw breath.

"Hadrian. You’re late.”

Hadrian looks up to see Prelate Lucius, sitting at a tea table balanced precariously upon the sands.

Hadrian’s approach is slow under the unforgiving sun. When he finally sits, it’s with relief that he takes the cup that Lucius offers him. When Hadrian drinks, however, he finds that the cup is not filled with tea, but with sand that runs between the cracks in his lips and fills his throat to the brim.

 _You died,_ Hadrian tries to say, but his words are choked by the sand and the dry heat.

“As did you,” Lucius says, sipping at his own cup. If it is also filled with sand, his reaction does not show it. “Though Samot seems to have spared you from the particulars of that fate.”

Hadrian clutches at his fur cloak. Underneath its weight, Hadrian’s back is drenched in slick, cloying sweat.

 _He asked me to do something in return,_ Hadrian says, but when he tries to remember the exact bargain, his dream self cannot recall any details. It’s just too _hot_ to remember the details _._

“And yet you still killed Jericho without a thought,” Lucius says. “He was a devout man, Hadrian.”

_A criminal._

Lucius’ lips press together so tightly that his next words come out as little more than a thin whistle.

“You do _zealous_ work, Hadrian. But what good is a sword if, in its enthusiasm, it strikes at the very community that it is sworn to serve?”

 _I serve Samothes,_ Hadrian tries to say, but only sand falls out of his mouth. The sharp grains shred his lips, and when Hadrian looks down, bloodied earth covers the table. It stains his cloak. _Surely_ \--he coughs out more sand, desperate to get a word in-- _surely zealotry is the holiest form of love._

Hadrian wakes up before Lucius can respond. The taste of blood does not leave him upon awakening--it appears that he’s bitten through his lip in the night. And, more worryingly, despite the newfound cold that’s accompanied the snow to Velas, that dry heat does not leave Hadrian either.

 

***

 

Lem and Hadrian walk through the streets of Rosemerrow in the early dawn. They aren’t together by choice, but rather through awkward happenstance: Hadrian had spotted Lem across the square and the two of them had been too polite to avoid saying hello. Perhaps later in the day they would have managed to avoid each other, but it’s simply too early for that kind of maneuvering right now. Hadrian himself is only awake at this hour because a servant of Samothes rises with the sun: even an artificial one. Lem is only awake, because, well...who knows what kind of things disturb the archivist’s sleep.

They walk past a pile of rubble and scorched stone: the place where Hella had destroyed the star. When Hadrian breathes, he swears that the leftover energy--that force of _creation_ \--that’d intruded upon the world then still crackles across his tongue. Hadrian coughs. It it only once they are away from that place--from that lingering energy--that he manages to speak.

“Uh...Lem.”

“Hmm?” Lem says, hardly looking up from where he’s fiddling with the pockets of his jacket. If he’s noticed anything amiss with Hadrian’s reaction to walking through the square, he hasn’t said anything about it: only offered the kind of banal small talk that quickly fizzled out under scrutiny.

Hadrian takes a deep breath. “Do you remember when we were on the Isle of Eventide, and I...placed a crown upon your head? We both saw a man.”

Lem shifts uncomfortably. “I remember.”

“Have...have you seen that man since then?”

The question has been in the back of Hadrian’s throat for months, but now that he finally has a chance to ask it, the answer seems painfully obvious. Lem shakes his head, confirming that, yes, the dreams of doubt and confusion--of being pulled apart by a distorted pantheon--have been Hadrian’s alone to bear.

“Have you?” Lem asks.

“Yes,” Hadrian admits. “He gave me this cloak.”

Lem’s eyes immediately shift to inspect the cloak, though the frown on his face tells Hadrian that the archivist’s internal catalog isn’t turning up much about it.

“Who is he?”

Hadrian swallows heavily. He hasn’t yet had water today, and his throat feels dry. “He’s a god.”

“Oh. Um…” Lem looks Hadrian up and down, as if finally sensing how uncomfortable he is in this place. After a moment, Lem offers in a commiserating sort of tone, “I met a god too. While we were away. Well, she was kind of a god? She was the daughter of…” Lem shakes his head. “You know what, never mind. It’s too complicated to explain and I’m not sure they even gave us all the details anyway.”

“How was she?” Hadrian presses. “What was meeting her like?” _Did it feel guilty, indulgent like a warm day near the end of autumn? Does that feeling--that_ heat _\--still linger, despite the snow? Is there_ anything _that helps it?_

“They were all pretty involved in their own affairs, honestly,” Lem says with a shrug. He scrunches up his nose. “Rather pushy too, they kept wanting us to stay and then...well. It was a whole thing.”

“How did you make it back?”

“Like I said, it was a whole thing. It just kind of happened,” Lem says. He taps the violin on his back. “I’m not a big fan of staying in places that try to have their way with me.”

Hadrian suddenly wishes that he were alone walking these streets. He wraps his cloak more tightly around himself. It’s warm. It comforts him.

He almost wishes that it didn’t.

 

***

 

“So, how does one become the paladin?” Adaire asks. “Is there, like, a test or something?”

She plays at making idle chit chat, casually inspecting her maps as the two of them keep watch, but even in the dim firelight, Hadrian sees how sharply her eyes move between the parchment and him.

Hadrian sighs. She is not the first person to be suspicious of Hadrian’s profession, but it is only now that Hadrian begins to wonder if she is _right_ to be. They tried-- _he_ tried--to help in Velas, in Rosemerrow, but winter still remains and the true sun still has yet to return. Ordennan ships still sail on the horizon and Benjamin still lingers in a place that Hadrian cannot touch. Hadrian’s sword is still soaked with the blood of many people and his heart is still torn with the allegiances of many gods.

It may be the first hour of their watch, but Hadrian is already so _very_ tired.

“It was a calling,” Hadrian sighs. Normally, he’d leave it at that, but he’s so _exhausted_ that he stumbles onward and continues, “Or, at least, that’s what I thought at the time.”

“And what do you think now?”

“I think that I am still being called,” Hadrian says, shaking his head at himself for his misstep. Of _course_ he is still being called. He just...doesn’t know who is doing the calling anymore--or to what they are calling him towards.

Adaire looks Hadrian up and down. Hadrian can’t help but avert his eyes. He knows that his fumbled words are no match for someone whose tongue is made of silver.

“So,” Adaire says thoughtfully, “if you or Ephrim or some other holy guy with powers decides that you don’t want to do it anymore, can you just give it up, or do you still feel that...calling, or whatever?”

Hadrian only just manages not to visibly recoil at her words. Sure, this past year has consisted of trial after trial--some by fire, most by freezing cold and sunless sky--but _giving it up_? Shirking his duties? The very idea feels like poison on Hadrian’s tongue: like when he’d first tried ale as a child and had choked on the bitter tang, not yet used to its acrid stench, unable to overcome the swimming thoughts that the drink had induced.

Hadrian’s thoughts swim again now. It’d...it’d never really occurred to Hadrian that he could be anything other than what he is. He doesn’t even think that it’s occurring to him _now_ \--his thoughts spin in a desperate orbit in an effort to put distance between himself and the idea.

As for whether the idea has occurred to other followers...Hadrian wants to deny it, but instead he finds that he cannot say. Even Ephrim, Hadrian is unsure of. Ephrim is faithful and ambitious, but he’s no zealot, not in the way that Hadrian is. After all, fire does not wait at its lord’s beck and call, but instead springs forth and _spreads,_ regardless of obstacle or order.

“We do not give up this life,” Hadrian finally insists, his words sounding tremulous and _exhausted_ even to his own ears. “We exist to serve our lord.”

Adaire frowns. It’s not her usual pursed lips of disapproval when Hadrian talks about the church, but instead something far more sympathetic.

“That’s...a really sad reason to exist,” Adaire murmurs.

 _It’s not. It’s not, it’s not, it can’t be, to serve him is to be_ his, _to love him is to-_

But before Hadrian can even try to put his frantic thoughts into words, Adaire has already left for her bedroll.

Perhaps it is for the best. Hadrian knows what he is and what he is not. He is not a silver tongue, is not shifting sands or Ordennan steel; he is not fire, but rather the metal forged within it: sharp and deadly and _always_ ready to swing.

That is: until the Blade in the Dark. There, Hadrian falters. He sees a smiling and _trapped_ god, his mouth fills with the taste of sand, and his hands hesitate--and then, only a moment later, all of that is _violently_ ripped from Hadrian with a force that leaves him gasping and stumbling and alone and _forsaken_ upon a rocking boat. Hadrian’s ears ring as he is deafened by the severed connection. The barks of a dog, the humming of a bleeding sword, and the shouts of his friends suddenly sound so very far away.

But that is not even the worst part. The worst part of it all is that Hella _forgives_ him for it. No, that’s not quite right; the worst part is that _that_ is what feels like the worst part: that his regret at betraying Hella eclipses his rejection from Samothes.

Hadrian just can’t help it though. His aching, hollow heart simply cannot manage any more grief for these dying gods.

“Hey,” Hella says. She leans against the doorway of his bedroom in Samol’s house. “You okay?”

Hadrian’s laugh is brittle. “Not...not really.”

“Yeah, that’s...that’s fair.” Hella brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. When she speaks again, her voice is soft: the tone of someone who has destroyed far too many things to truly blame anyone else for the impulse. “Why did you do it?”

“I already said: because he told me to,” Hadrian says, knowing that that isn’t an actual answer. Maybe it used to be, back on the surface, back when Hadrian could still feel his Sunlight, could still feel _him,_ but here...here, underneath the ground, where the mistakes and revisions of the gods live, _because he told me to_ is an answer that crumbles beneath the weight of the earth.

Hella shakes her head at his words, and Hadrian wants to laugh again. He and Hella are so, _stupidly_ similar sometimes: they do so many terrible things just because they think it’s what they’ve been told to do.

Hadrian doesn’t laugh. Instead he sighs, trying to think of any words he could give to Hella. But the only ones that he has to offer feel like clay upon his tongue, like mere children’s rhymes after everything they’ve seen. But they’re all that Hadrian has to give.

“I am his Sword, Hella,” Hadrian says. “Striking where he asks is...was how I showed my devotion. It’s a form of love.”

Hella is quiet for a long moment. Then, being careful to telegraph her movements, she places a warm hand on Hadrian’s shoulder.

“There are other kinds of love, Hadrian,” Hella says. “And I think we know by now that swords can be more than they appear.”

Hadrian has realized that the former, at least, is true. It is a realization that tastes like sharp wine upon his lips, heady and strong and sweet and _flooding_ his mind as he stands with Hella to fight Qinta Quatróna. And _oh_ , it is so much easier to fight than it is to think: it is what they do. They fight together as they have done so many times before, and, if not for the anger boiling in Hadrian’s stomach like poison; if not for how the _clang_ of swords echoes through his hollow heart; if not for the gritty, bitter taste of blood that floods his mouth, this would feel something like love.

Maybe it does anyway. In truth, Hadrian has been a Sword for too long to readily tell the difference.

Except, now, for the first time in his life, Hadrian is a sword for no one. He is not fire, he is not metal, he is not the tune of a violin or the sands upon a desert, he is not the servant of a wolf or a sun or a dying man, he is, he is…

He is Hadrian.

And it is not metal or fire or wolves or the sun that saves Hadrian, but _water_ : a baptism that _finally_ cools Hadrian’s dry throat, his burning skin, his bleeding wounds. When he comes up for air on the other side, it’s as if he’d only known how to wheeze for his entire life and could now, finally _breathe._

 _I’m Hadrian,_ he thinks, head spinning as he touches a shaking hand to the sword still in his side, gasping for air in this new, green world. _I am Hadrian._

It isn’t a thought that goes away. Even when Hadrian and this world’s Samothes make eye contact, that mantra-- _Hadrian, I am Hadrian_ \--is never eclipsed by the presence or grandiosity of a god. Instead, the two somehow co-exist--and even _interact_ \--in the space between Hadrian’s body and Samothes’ own. The whole thing makes Hadrian dizzy, as if he were quickly descending a large mountain and getting drunk on the sudden overabundance of oxygen.

 _It was always supposed to be like this,_ Hadrian realizes, tears springing to his eyes as he feels Samothes’ touch turn into a question: a request for permission that Hadrian has never remembered giving before. _This is what it was supposed to be, please come back to me and give me this, I was hollow before and filled with obedience, and now I am hollow and filled with nothing, please fill me with this, please give me this._

The warmth that washes over Hadrian in response is not the heat of a desert sun, but of a carefully banked fire in the middle of a storm. Tears spill from Hadrian’s eyes and he nearly sinks to his knees, overcome by its sheer comfort.

“Thank you,” Samothes says to him.

Hadrian nods through his tears. “Of course.”

“Not ‘of course,’” Samothes reminds him gently. “You didn’t have to do anything.”

“I...I wanted to,” Hadrian says honestly.

Samothes smiles--like he’s so _proud_ of Hadrian. He begins speaking to Hadrian of Samot and love and citizenship, and even though it’s now slipped into something more subtle, that smile still rings in Hadrian’s ears. It joins a chorus of bells and shouting children from the square; joins the buzzing warmth and humming insects of the spring day; joins the relieved shouts of his friends calling his name that harmonizes with the _Hadrian, Hadrian, Hadrian_ that echoes comfortably throughout his own mind.


End file.
